Formula One’s ruling body has called Pirelli into a meeting
to discuss the matter on July 3. The next race is the German
Grand Prix at the Nuerburgring on July 7. Pirelli, Europe’s
third-largest tire maker, is the sole tire supplier in Formula
One. Its shares were down 0.9 percent at 12.05 p.m. in Milan
today.

At one point yesterday the safety car was introduced to
allow debris from shredded tires to be removed from the track,
and teams urged drivers to avoid hitting curbs.

‘Very Scary’

“It’s very scary,” Button told reporters. “It’s not
right and it’s not just dangerous for the driver in the car, but
it’s dangerous for all the cars behind. He could lose control at
that speed, but also the cars behind are getting hit with a
massive belt of rubber, which has got metal in it, so it’s got
to change.”

Red Bull principal Christian Horner said his team was
“very nervous about the tires.”

Pirelli and Mercedes were reprimanded by the FIA last month
after wrongly having an in-season tire test.

Pirelli motorsport director Paul Hembery said the company
needs to analyze the data before deciding what caused the
blowouts.

“We are currently performing our analysis, we have to go
away and understand what has happened,” he told reporters.
“When we’ve got the facts then we can understand and get to the
core of the issue. When we have the answers we will let you
know. We need to analyze it properly to give the correct
reply.”

‘Negative Publicity’

Former McLaren driver David Coulthard said he sympathized
with Pirelli because the tire-maker was asked to produce “high
degradation” rubber to ensure at least two pit stops per car to
make racing more unpredictable.

“Pirelli should not cop all the flak for this state of
affairs,” Coulthard wrote in a column for the U.K.’s Daily
Telegraph newspaper published today. “They could easily come up
with tires which have no degradation, which last the whole race.
And maybe they will do just that because at the moment they are
getting a whole lot of negative publicity, which they do not
need.”

Michelin & Cie., one of the series tire suppliers in 2005,
refunded $10 million of tickets for the U.S. Grand Prix that
year after 14 of 20 drivers refused to race because of problems
with its tires. Michelin quit Formula One at the end of the 2006
season.

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg won yesterday’s race. Red
Bull’s Sebastian Vettel didn’t finish because of a mechanical
problem, though he keeps his lead in the drivers’ standings.